54 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
country above the freezing point was the extreme tip of the Florida 
peninsula, Key West reporting the only temperature above the 
freezing point east of the Rocky Mountains.” 
On February 12, 1899, I recorded: “Today there is a brisk 
snowstorm and it is cold. On the roth the thermometers in vari- 
ous parts of our island registered from 7 to 10 degrees below zero 
and Staten Island Sound is reported frozen over.’ On February 
13, 1899, a storm that for severity rivaled the blizzard of March 
1888 reached Staten Island. It was said that not a vessel entered 
the bay, and the harbor was choked with ice. This storm was 
called the “ Blizzard’s Closest Rival,’ for while the snowfall was 
not quite as heavy, the wind was higher and reached a maximum 
velocity of 58 miles an hour. 
The winter of 1903-04 was recorded by the local weather bureau 
at the time as the “ Coldest Winter on Record,” with a mean tem- 
perature of 26 degrees, and that of 1904-05 as the next coldest, 
with a mean temperature of 26.8° F. In both of these winters 
some of the less hardy introduced plants on Staten Island were 
either killed or badly injured, but the damage done was not nearly 
as great as in the remarkable winter of 1917-18. 
